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Proto-Ydtobogȧntiaky
Proto-Ydtobogȧntiaky (from ydtobogȧŋ "central (neuter)" and tiaky "languages/mouths") is agreed on by most linguists to be the ancestor of all languages of the Ydtobogȧntiaky language family. The language became widespread and due to this was subject to extreme dialectical variation and eventually separated into multiple different languages. History It originated on the coast of the Ydtobogȧn Peninsula in Amalan and acquired many speakers over time. After 8000BK, regional differences in pronunciation, grammar, and expressions caused dialects to form which would later become independent languages. In 5700BK, the first writing system began to take form, created by Proto-Matlapogiogân (a descendant of Proto-Ydtobogȧntiaky) speakers. It used pictographs, and spread to other languages after becoming an alphabetic system (called Ydtobogȧndeki) around 4000BK. Phonology Proto-Ydtobogȧntiaky did not make a distinction between voiced and voiceless consonants, although some of its descendents do. Except /h/, of which the existence is still being disputed, all plosives have voiced allophones before a voiced consonant and all fricatives have voiceless allophones before voiceless consonants. This is what led to voicing distinction in later languages, as sound changes in some reduced many consonant clusters to single phonemes. Both tables have romanizations for each phoneme (letters without asterisks) that will be used to represent reconstructed words. Verbs Person and number were not marked in Proto-Ydtobogȧntiaky verbs. Unlike nouns, verbs had only one inflectional paradigm. Other suffixes were added after the transitivity suffix, which was usually a single word-final vowel. The only verbs that didn't mark transitivity like this were *ȧt and *hoik, intransitive and transitive copulative verbs. The marking of transitivity disappeared in most later languages due to nouns marking ergative, accusative, and absolutive cases. In some cases, transitivity became a lexically marked quality, as the original suffixes were heavily eroded. Verbal Distinction Verbs distinguished five things: transitivity, tense, aspect, mood, and voice. Before Proto-Ydtobogȧntiaky split into different languages, the formerly agglutinative style of marking these five qualities eroded and merged into something more fusional. This was mostly due to vowel harmony, which in some languages influenced the usage of apophony to mark aspect, mood, and (sometimes) transitivity in verbs. The three levels of transitivity were: intransitive, transitive, and ditransitive. The three tenses are: anterior past, past, and non-past. The anterior past was used to express the pluperfect and the remote past. The past was used to express the perfect and the recent past. The non-past expressed the present or future. In some cases, the past expressed the present, like in the reconstructed sentence betȧdit tib tod ageu ȧtǡnt kōmminaiēmpybȧty tod tēh tip peltigtemīnaubk detoma, which mean "I'd go there, but there may be predatory animals near there during my arrival". The past tense is used in betȧdit (go-INTR-OPT-'PST') to express an event before the hypothetical arrival of the speaker at the described location (which would have been in the future), even though the event (which is the beginning of the speaker's hypothetical journey) is in present tense. The three aspects are: repetitive, initial, and progressive. The repetitive expressed habituality and iterativity. The initial expressed the inchoative and prospective aspects. The progressive expressed both the continuous and the progressive. The six moods are: indicative, subjunctive, optative, conditional, potential, and imperative. The interrogative was not considered a separate mood, and unlike other moods was expressed using the auxiliary adverb kipa. The three voices (there may have been more, though) are: active, passive, and antipassive. There may have been a reflexive voice. However, reciprocal expressions were rare and not regarded as a distinct voice in verbal inflection. Conjugation The original suffixes used from 10000BK to 9000BK gave way to similar, shorter, fusional suffixes. Those were the basis of conjugational suffixes in later languages and are the only ones able to be reconstructed. Proto-Ydtobogȧntiaky verbs conjugate according to only one paradigm and are usually completely regular. Person and number were not marked in verbs, and in other related languages aren't either. Very few verbs are irregular, although many became slightly or heavily irregular. Some examples of moderately irregular verbs are ȧt, hoik, timetēr, dīmȧt. Conjugation occurs almost completely without variation, as the suffixes are simply added to the end of the root of the verb. Here, all of the possible conjugational suffixes are shown in a series of tables. AP stands for anterior past, P stands for past, and NP stands for non-past. Active Forms Verbs conjugated for active voice are slightly shorter than for other voices because active voice, unlike the others, is unmarked. Passive Forms The passive suffix was either *-gud or *-ud, depending on whether the previous suffixes ended in a vowel or not. In some, cases vowel harmony is prominent, changing a nearby <ȧ> to and to . Antipassive Forms The antipassive suffix was either *-iēm or *-ēm, depending on whether the previous suffixes ended in a vowel or not. In some cases (although more uncommon than in the passive), vowel harmony is prominent, changing a nearby to . Non-Finite Forms Proto-Ydtobogȧntiaky had a somewhat regular method of deriving non-finite forms, such as participles, from verbs. Participles Proto-Ydtobogȧntiaky had a set of participles, one for each tense-voice combination, of which there were nine. Participles were made by adding a suffix to an unconjugated verb. Sometimes, participles were used to make derived nouns from verbs. This form was made by deleting the word-final . The passive participles also changed the word-final to , i.e. ridiguda (participle suffix) > ridigun (nominalizing suffix). The anterior past participles corresponded to the perfect/past participles of other languages. The past participles corresponded to the present participles of other languages. The non-past participles corresponded to the future participles of other languages. Infinitives Similar to the participles, all three tenses "shifted" later in time when used to described infinitive. The anterior past represented the perfect, the past represented the present, and the non-past represented the future. Examples: toiŋguireint tia mīretēm "I feel like eating" iŋkireuō tia emuegetud "I like to be loved" kibreadireidt rǡk bepetud ageu ytoedire ty tȧdierireuō hēa tȧibiȧŋ heta "They wanted to be seen, but I'm starting to figure out he doesn't have eyes" Negatives A negative verb was made with the prefix *tȧh- before vowels (except for , , <ī>, <ū>, and <ȧ>) and *tȧ- before consonants. Before a <ȧ>, the negative prefix became *tǡ- and the word-initial <ȧ> was omitted. If the negative prefix was before a <ī> or <ū>, the <ī> or <ū> was shortened to a semivocalic or . In phrases such as "He didn't take any food" or "They don't have flowers", a negative adjective made from ībia "one" and the negative prefix was used. For example, in tȧdierireint rǡk tȧibiȧb ȧroged "They don't have flowers", tȧibiȧb (which really means "not one") is used with the accusative singular of the word for flower (ȧroged from ȧrogel) instead of using only the accusative plural. So, the phrase can be glossed as NEG-have-TR.IND.PROG.NPST.ACT 3PL.ERG NEG-one-F.ACC flower-ACC.SG, or "They don't have not one flower", and is technically a double negative. Nouns Nouns declined for eight cases and distinguished between singular and plural. Nouns had five inflection paradigms. Each noun is assigned one of three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Sometimes the ending of a noun gives away its gender; However, this is not always the case. Nouns in the Lexicon section are in ergative singular form. First Declension Nouns of this declension are always masculine. In first declension nouns with a root-final long vowel (i.e. bōn), the long vowel is shortened in the absolutive singular (i.e. boi) because a long vowel cannot precede a semivowel in the same syllable. Second Declension Nouns of this declension are always feminine. In second declension nouns with a root-final long vowel (i.e. diunām), the long vowel is shortened in the absolutive singular and the genitive singular (i.e. diunau) because a long vowel cannot precede a semivowel in the same syllable. Third Declension Nouns of this declension are always neuter. In third declension nouns with a root-final long vowel (i.e. mēa), the long vowel is NOT shortened in the accusative plural and the dative plural (i.e. mēu, which is pronounced /ˈme:.u/) because the long vowel maintains constant syllable length in this declension. Fourth Declension Nouns of this declension are either masculine or feminine. In fourth declension nouns with a root-final long vowel (i.e. bonēl), the long vowel is shortened in the genitive singular (i.e. boneu) because a long vowel cannot precede a semivowel in the same syllable. Fifth Declension Nouns of this declension can be any gender. Pronouns Pronouns declined much like fifth declension nouns. There are also two demonstrative pronouns. ta means this/that and tok means these/those. As you can see, the singular pronouns end in -a, while the plural pronouns end in -k. The plural pronouns decline exactly like singular fifth declension nouns, which end in -k in the ergative singular. However, the singular pronouns replace the -a with a fifth declension noun ending in other cases. Examples: bepireint tia bȧeg (I see you(plural)) īuadoret hēa rǡg tir (He has given them to me) kipa tierahu lib (Can you(singular) move?) Adjectives Adjectives declined for eight cases like nouns, but sometimes did not distinguish between singular and plural. Unlike nouns, adjectives only had one inflectional paradigm. Adjectives also decline for gender, and most suffixes are similar. Adjectives and adverbs are not distinguished in Proto-Ydtobogȧntiaky. Short Form Adjectives had a short form and a long form. The short form ends in -a (ergative singular) and is declined like a third declension noun. The short form was used when the adjective/adverb described a verb or in statements such as hoikreint hēa poka (It is blue). The short form had singular and plural forms. When describing a verb, the short form was always used in the ergative/accusative and was used in the plural ergative when the agent or subject of the verb was more than one person/thing. Long Form The long form ended in -ȧn (ergative masculine) and was declined using the suffixes in the table below. The long form was used when the adjective/adverb described a noun or another adjective/adverb, unless the described adjective/adverb described a verb. Unlike the short form, this form did not mark plurality. Adjectives in the Lexicon section are in short form. Adverbs are listed as adjectives. Lexicon The following is an incomplete list of the Proto-Ydtobogȧntiaky lexicon. Category:Proto-languages Category:Ydtobogȧntiaky languages Category:Amalan